My Tracked Changes to Mark Saunders Blog (Because, is this guy for real?)

Original article here.

I haven't blogged in a really long time, but as I read this, I found myself crossing his words out in my head to turn them around so I figured hey, why not throw my two cents in.

None of this is researched or backed up by any statistics other than those of which I am generally aware based on my own education and life experience.

I also didn't really proofread because I have to get back to work.  Enjoy.

People Who Don't Have Facebook

People who don't have facebook are so smart.

They have become a novelty.  Unlike the other 757 people you went to preschool, grade school, high school, undergrad, grad school, worked with at your first job, worked with at your second job, worked with at your 82nd job, used to live around the corner from, used to hang out at the same bar as, used to hang out at the same bar as, dated your friend, friend of someone you dated, and anyone else whose last name you've ever learned.... You DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE UP TO.

On Sunday, I went to my church for the first time in years.  I saw from across the church that one of my grade school friends was pregnant!  I was so intrigued.  I knew she had gotten married sometime in the past two years, but unlike virtually everyone else I went to St. Monica's with, I hadn't seen her sonogram pictures, heard when she changed to maternity clothes, or congratulated her right away (In fact I still haven't since I didn't catch her after church.)

But I was so excited for her!  And that was partly because we were always good friends but also just because I didn't already know.

The same phenomenon was present when I ran into another neighborhood friend's parents at a Communion party and found out she was recently married, or ran into a preschool friend and got to meet her preschool aged kids!   It was so much better than just another bride or baby on my news feed.

Oh, facebook.  It connects us with people we have no business still talking to.  Sometimes it can be really nice!  Friends you want to keep in touch with but haven't always got the time after work, home, and keeping up even minimal contacts with family and inner circle members.  Facebook is really a blessing!

But the people you NEVER comment on, silently exchange "likes" with, and whose business you may even possibly share with whichever of your close friends/family members know/remember them, too-- occasionally in a mean-spirited way (hmmm? come on, you do it).

WHY ARE WE FRIENDS WITH THOSE PEOPLE?

Morbid curiosity?  They aren't actually our "friends"-- some of them were even frenemies or enemies when they were actively in your life at school, work, or the club.  And some of them we barely know at all, but they have a baby with the sister of your brother's girl, or whatever -- and yet we know allllllllll their business.  And odds are, they are possibly sharing your business with whichever or their family members or friends remembers you - occasionally in a mean-spirited way.

One of my friends has a policy about these people.  It's very brazen - she deletes them! Or just doesn't even accept them!  It's so brave.  I will delete maybe 4 people per year.  And probably add 60 or 70!   What is the world coming to?

Another of my friends recently reinstated her facebook after over a year.  She periodically comes back, says hello to everyone, and deletes again.  And everyone is so excited to see her!  Just like I was excited about the childhood-friend-pregnancy I discovered in church.  Because they have the secret: not having a facebook makes you mysterious.  It makes you in demand.  It makes you magical.

I could never have the self-discipline to not have a facebook, and anyway, I don't want to.  I have entirely too many friends to stay in touch with all of them individually.  But why keep the rest of them? I know I won't delete them and I know this whole society is ridiculously unlike anything it was when we were teenagers, college even.  But I am kind of loving it!  Is that wrong?

But for those of you who have figured IT out, and know that having no facebook, or even a rarely updated facebook or occasionally reinstated facebook, is totally ingenious,  you, my friends, are the new cool kids.

And the rest of us are computer geeks.

I don't have much time today, but I wanted to share two recipes that have made up my last 3 meals (give or take a banana)!

Lunch in the Mediterranean

First, we have my delicious Mediterranean Tuna Salad lunch, which I am eating as we speak for the second day in a row.  (I don't recommend letting it sit.  I prepped it fresh both days).

Ingredients

• around 1/3 cup Cedar's Chickpea Salad (if you can't find it, a copycat recipe is here: http://www.thenakedkitchen.com/tangy-chickpea-salad/)
• 2.5 oz (1/2 5 oz. can) solid white albacore tuna, packed in water, drained
• 1/4-1/3 cup balsamic mushrooms from Whole Foods (again, copycat recipe here: http://www.food.com/recipe/mediterranean-balsamic-mushrooms-229948)
• 1 (1.5oz) packet Ken's Lite Olive Oil Vinaigrette (don't judge me.  I'm at work and can't always whip up my own dressings on a moment's notice.  These are low-cal, have no HFCS, and are 29 cents at Wawa.  I've turned my boss onto them after pointing out that FF italian has HFCS.)
• 3 cups baby arugula (mine happened to be organic.  If you haven't noticed, I don't care if yours is.)
• 1/2 small to medium orange, in segments (optional - I added it the second time I made this and I loved it both ways)

Combine in a tupperware container with a very tight lid and give it a good shaking.  That's it!  Enjoy!

As a lunch, this salad is flavorful, filling, healthy and full of tons of fiber (8g w/o orange, 12g with) for only around 300 calories! 

Guilt Free Comfort Food

The next recipe is one I found on "Lose 5 Lbs with Good Housekeeping" with Melissa D'Arabian.  It looked so good, and I loved the idea of comfort food without the guilt, so I could not wait to run out and get the ingredients and try it!  It's basically a waaaay slimmed down mac and cheese, with pureed cauliflower and carrots added to the cheese to give it the color and creaminess of mac and cheese with about 1/3 the fat.  The best part is you can have a HUGE portion (see the plated up pic below) and still keep the calories low, and its got fiber and calcium and veggies.  You can find the recipe here.

Some notes:

• I used Dreamfields pasta to make it even more diet-friendly
• I prepared the entire recipe, then put half in a casserole dish in the oven as directed and saved the other half.  I'm going to freeze it, then defrost it and make a second casserole another night.  The recipe makes 6 huge servings, and that's way too much for us!
• I really enjoyed this because it gave me the savory, creamy, mac and cheese feeling without the guilt, but I have to say my BF was NOT a fan.  He labeled it "bland" and only had a few bites.
• I served this with fried chicken cutlets, a somewhat healthier version-- one scrambled egg (with a few tbsp water added), one pound thin sliced breast cutlets, 1/2 cup 100% whole wheat bread crumbs, and 2 tbsp olive oil.  Dip the cutlets in egg then bread crumbs, heat oil, and fry.  The end.

Without further adieu, here are some pics of my guiltless comfort food dinner:

Panini Paradise

Currently, I am on a quest to exhaust my free zumba class options before joining a gym that offers zumba classes.  I am basically scouring the South Philly/South Jersey area for (a) gyms that give you 1 day to 1 week guest passes and (b) church basement type classes where your first time is free.  This will save me some money and let me make an educated decision when I do join a more expensive gym (right now I belong to the economical Planet Fitness, with no group fitness classes :(  )

A side effect of all this zumba is getting home later at night.  Last night I left work at 7:08, went home to change and grab my coupons, sped through Shop Rite buying groceries to cook for the week, and made it to 8:00 zumba at the LA Fitness in South Philly.  I was very happy with their zumba offering!  I am seriously considering joining, but only if I can get the sign-up fee ($100) waived, since I think that is outrageous.

So anyway.  Since I got home after 9, I wanted dinner to be fast.  I chose one of my favorite recipes, Eating Well's Turkey and Tomato Paninis.  These are always a hit in our house.  I love them, Chalie loves them, they are under 300 calories per sandwich, and they take about 15 minutes to prepare.

There are just two of us, so I halve the recipe.  You'll need:

1 1/2 tbsp lite mayo
1 tbsp nonfat plain greek yogurt
1 tbsp shredded parm
1 tbsp (or more) chopped fres
h basil
1/2 tsp lemon juice
fresh black pepper

Combine the above ingredients in a bowl.  Then you need:

4 slices 100% whole wheat bread (a brand with big, wide slices, like Arnold)
A little less than 1/2 pound deli turkey (low sodium is recommended but do your best)
one plum tomato, sliced
1 tsp canola oil

Spread the mixture on each piece of bread, then top with three slices of turkey (more if its thinner).  I bunch up my turkey instead of just folding it flat and you get lovely sandwiches that way.  Then layer the tomato slices over the turkey and close the sandwiches.

Put the tsp of canola oil in a big skillet, and this is where the fun part comes in.  You use canned goods to press the paninis.  Place the sandwiches in the skillet, then put another skillet on top, and put two 14oz. cans in the top skillet.  This presses the paninis down without you having to stand over them.  I keep the heat towards the lower side of medium and give it about 3-4 minutes per side.

Then I make my favorite salad, arugula with homemade lemon vinaigrette dressing.  Very simple:

Lemon juice - about 1 tbsp
salt
pepper
then I drizzle in the extra virgin olive oil while whisking with my mini whisk.  Maybe about a tbsp olive oil.

Optional ingredients in this dressing are fresh basil and parmesan cheese, but last night I was trying to be good/fast so I kept it simple.  (For the BF I serve romaine with caesar dressing, the only salad he will eat-- another reason I love this meal is I can adapt it to both of us).

I love these because they are much more delicious than your average turkey sandwich with much less fat than a turkey-cheese-mayo situation on a white sub roll with chips (my man's go-to turkey dinner, although he doesn't do the mayo).

Try these, you will be hooked!! 

(Note: the first pic is from another night when I made these, months back-- last night's photo is above).

Adventures with Bulgur

I don't really blog much about, well, anything, but I am trying to get into the habit.  '

First, I should confess.  I am a foodie.  I didn't admit this, even to myself, until my very good friend Jec self-identified as such and made me come to terms with it.  Since then I have embraced it!  It's like I finally found a name (other than fat kid, which if I remember correctly, is what Jec and I called ourselves in college) for my addiction/obsession/struggle with food.

But back to blogging.  Point is, I love to cook and I love to learn about healthy, nutrient dense foods and find ways to incorporate them into my Italian-American, cheese loving, decadent foodie lifestyle.  But most of the time, I am only cooking for myself and my man, and his reactions to my superfood meals range from eating-it-but-picking-around-the-vegetables-and-totally-ignoring-the-grain to taking-one-bite-and-having-a-bowl-of-cookie-crisp-for-dinner.  (I give him points for tasting everything).  So other than texting pics of my creations to my BFFs and sharing recipes with them, I have no outlet for my kitchen creativity beyond my own taste buds.  So here I am!  Determined to share my nutrient dense and still delicious (imho) recipes with the world!

A few disclaimers (since, after all, I am a "chef" second and a lawyer first):

• I am NOT a vegetarian or a vegan.  I love meat.  I love steak, bacon, even veal, and I could not imagine a life without cheese.

• That being said, I recognize that (for better or worse) animal products should not and cannot be the pillars of a healthy and disease-proof diet.  And since I pretty much love ALL food (I just tried to think of one I did not like to put in this parenthetical, and I was dumbfounded), I am enamored with many foods that traditionally are "substitutes" for animal products.  If I use them, it's because I like them/want to be healthy, and not because I in any way shun animal products as part of my diet.  

• If you are an ethical type vegetarian/vegan, as we say where I'm from, getthefuggouttahere.  No, really.  Read someone else's blog.  I believe in the food chain and you will never convince me otherwise.  I have visited enough blogs in my quest for healthier living/cooking to know that there are plenty of carnivore haters out there, and I am not interested in your soap box.  I have plenty of my own, but meat isn't one of them.

• More than half of what I make starts off with a recipe, usually from the internet.  I am constantly browsing Eating Well and Real Simple, and I love Rachael Ray (if she would just lay off the butter) but I also love the random blogs I find and sometimes even remember to save the website and return to it.  I will always credit my source unless in a rare case I have been making something too long to remember where I got it, and I will try to tell you my own additions/subtractions/changes/mistakes and take you through the process of me making their recipe.  So this is not, for the most part, a blog about my original ideas.  I am still at a point in my cooking where I often question what will go together so I google the ingredients I have on hand to make sure I am not crazy, and go from there.

But anyway... let's talk about bulgur!  Bulgur, in my opinion, is less glamorous than the other grains.  It doesn't sound as exotic or sexy as farro or quinoa, but its actually rather delicious.  It reminds me of quinoa in that it has that pop when you bite into it, and reminds me of farro because it has the same nuttiness.  I am not going to pretend I know exactly what it is, but I am pretty sure it comes from wheat.    Let me find a more precise definition -- hold on.

Ok, according to Susan Westmoreland in Good Housekeeping, 

"This nutritious staple of the Middle East is pulverized from whole-wheat kernels that have been boiled, drained, dried, cracked, and sifted. Bulgur differs from cracked wheat in that it is precooked."

Great, so now we have a definition, and we can talk about the bulgur I actually cooked!  Almost.  This dinner started with a chicken recipe, so let's talk about that first:

Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Pimiento Cheese! (c) Eating Well

I followed this recipe almost exactly.  I did not find any pimientos at the mediocre supermarket by my office, so I got some Italian red cherry peppers marinated in oil from the supermarket olive bar and they worked just fine! (Any suggestions on what to do with the leftovers?  I am thinking of stuffing some cheese in them, but I'd like something creative...)  Otherwise I did exactly what the recipe told me to do (right down to the internal temperature of the chicken... very important for safety reasons!)  I'm only going to post the photo of my version, but you can compare for yourself with the Eating Well recipe, and I think you will agree that I nailed it!! 

The recipe suggested barley and zucchini, but (1) I did not have any barley, and I had too many grains at home to buy a new one, and (2) the BF is not really a squash fan.  So I decided, steamed green beans, and then wondered what would be a good carb to balance the meal, when I remembered I had gotten a great price on a package of bulgur and forgotten to cook it. 

Soo I started to think.  I wanted something simple since there was a lot going on with that chicken.  Pilaf came to mind, but all I know about pilaf is that (at least for rice) you use broth instead of water.  So I called for reinforcement!  A friend gave me her family's top secret recipe (again, for rice pilaf, not bulgur), and I adapted it, enough so that she gave me permission to tell you here what I did:

1c bulgur
2 tbsp salted butter
2c reduced sodium chicken stock
salt and pepper

First, I melted the butter in the pot.  Then I added the bulgur and stirred it, just for 30-60 seconds maybe, until it was coated.  I added salt and pepper.  Then I added the stock and let it boil.  When it was boiling, I lowered the heat way down, put a lid on it (after cursing my kitchen out because it took me about 2 minutes to find the lid, in case anyone was interested) and let it sit until everything else was ready.  I turned the heat completely off after about 15 minutes (the recommended time for the bulgur on the package) and let it sit, covered, for as long as it took the damned chicken to reach 165 degrees in the over (in other words, forever).  

This isn't even the fun part!  Dinner was delicious if I do say so myself (the BF even liked the chicken, not so much the pilaf but he doesn't "taste with an open mind"-- trust me, it was awesome).  Afterwards I found myself with a lot of bulgur and I did not want to see it go to waste!  So I did a little fridge-digging, and came up with the following (note: all measurements are estimates cause I made this one up):

1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/3 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup black beans
1 cup Kale (a handful), finely chopped
Salt and pepper
2 cups cooked bulgur pilaf
Olive-oil flavored nonstick cooking spray

Spray pan with nonstick spray.  Add garlic and onion and brown for 2-3 minutes, until onions get lighter in color and garlic gets darker.  Add red pepper, cook one or two minutes more.  Add salt and pepper.  Add kale and stir until it wilts - only a minute or two since its chopped so small.  Add the beans and stir just to heat them, maybe another minute, if that.  Finally, add in the cooked bulgur and stir to combine.

I had this for lunch today, and I have another serving left for tomorrow.  It was so good that I didn't want it to be over when I ate it this afternoon.  And it's gorgeous, check it out!
  

Apparently "Bacon" is a Recurring Theme Here...

This sums it up so well... if you don't want to marry someone of the same sex, please tell me how you are affected!   That is all.

I Got a Story to Tell...

Today, I met my friend Kelley at Panera for lunch.  I had soup and a "salmon club," and forgot to tell them to leave off the bacon, since I have given up meat and dairy for Lent.  So I brushed off the huge serving of bacon, and went to town.  I was bringing back something for my boss to eat, and he too was not eating meat since it was a Friday in Lent.  He also chose a salmon club, without the bacon and without the delicious creamy dressing.  But when I ordered, I forgot to tell them to hold the bacon and creamy dressing.

As I was driving away I realized I did not give these important limiting instructions.  I went back in and although I did not lie and tell the Panera people that I had actually requested that they hold the bacon and dressing, I didn't tell them I hadn't either.  They believed "someone" had messed up, and remade the sandwich, telling me to keep the incorrect sandwich.

Never one to waste food - especially a delicious salmon sandwich on a croissant - I ate the extra sandwich for dinner about an hour ago.

And that is the story of how I had the same sandwich twice in one day, and how, also in one day, I wasted enough bacon to feed a small village.

I thought this was too long to share on facebook, and I also wanted to draw attention to my nifty new template! Handmade by me right from my office.  I hereby announce this innermost thoughts style of blogging as my new daily habit.